The Nation Newspaper

Category: Editorial

  • Nigeria’s missing schoolgirls

    Nigeria’s missing schoolgirls

    Islamist extremists from the Boko Haram sect have a five-year record of atrocities. In the impoverished northeast of Nigeria they have murdered schoolchildren, attacked mosques and churches and this year slaughtered villagers in their hundreds – in the pursuit of imposing strict Islamic law on a multi-ethnic and multi-faith nation.

    In the past three weeks they have carried out two bomb attacks in a crowded neighbourhood of Abuja, the capital, signalling a fresh bid to broaden their impact after a period in which they have been largely confined to the remote northeast. Nearly 100 people died in both attacks, the latest of which comes days before Abuja is due to host business leaders and politicians from across the continent and beyond at a World Economic Forum conference.

    The militants’ sobriquet translates as “western education is forbidden”. No crime they have committed in that name has traumatised the country quite like the abduction of 270 schoolgirls on April 14. The girls, aged between 16 and 18, were preparing to sit exams when they were taken from school hostels late at night. About 50 escaped. It is thought that the militants initially took the rest to a forest redoubt. Subsequent reports suggest some may have been trafficked into Chad and Cameroon and forced to “marry” the insurgents as sex slaves.

    There is no easy way to combat an enemy willing to use such tactics. But the mass abduction, together with the bombings in Abuja, have exposed the limitations of Nigeria’s counter-insurgency strategy and greatly undermined public confidence in the capacity of the state.

    Nigerians have understandably been outraged at the girls’ disappearance, incensed by ineffectual efforts to find and free them and upset at an initial lack of international support – which some have contrasted to global efforts to track down the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. That is changing. A Twitter campaign under the hashtag “bringbackourgirls” is drawing global attention. Both Britain and the US have offered assistance. The Nigerian military is now reportedly deploying more troops in addition to those struggling to police a state of emergency in the worst affected states.

    Meanwhile, the tragic plight of the girls has united Nigerians in demanding a more effective response to the threat posed by Boko Haram. President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration can build on this sentiment to make the case for a more comprehensive approach to the crisis.

    His administration has committed ever greater resources for defence – now twice those allocated to national education. But his military strategy to contain the insurgency is insufficient given the magnitude of the threat. This is exacerbating divisions between the predominately Muslim north and mostly Christian south, and poisoning national politics just when Nigeria should be capitalising on its new status as Africa’s largest economy.

    More troops are clearly needed to protect villages and schools and to pursue Boko Haram in the bush. Belatedly, the government is putting together a relief fund to help victims of the violence.

    This should be buttressed with a well-resourced, and publicised development plan to address the economic malaise of the north. This has worsened in parallel with a surge in pockets of relative affluence in the south and contributed to the radicalisation of parts of the population. The government should also intensify efforts alongside northern political, traditional and religious elites to deradicalise and reintegrate militants while isolating the hard core of terrorists.

    The battle will inevitably be long. But Nigerians need to feel as though the state is winning. For now, they do not.

    -Financial Times

  • Help from abroad

    Help from abroad

    Brown and the UN plan to protect northeast schools reveals failure of Jonathan’s government

    The symptoms of a failing state, especially in view of the near breakdown of law and order in most parts of the north, are prominently apparent for all to see now. Yet, the Nigerian government has not exhibited convincing capacity to curb the security threat that is threatening the nation’s cohesion. In view of the debilitating prevailing circumstance, we are not astonished that the United Nations is considering assisting Nigeria in protecting schools in the Northeast, in the wave of persistent armed attacks on the schools and abduction of students/pupils by Boko Haram terrorists. This is at least a refreshing contrast to our own president dancing at a political rally hours after the abductions. It tells of how we value human lives, compared to how people in more civilised climes value same, especially when students and children generally are involved.

    Mr Gordon Brown, former British Prime Minister and a United Nations special envoy on education, unfurled the global body’s plan through a piece that was published in The Guardian of London and on CNN’s News Live while expressing the international community’s concern over the recent abduction of 234 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by members of the Islamist sect.

    Brown was very clear on the initiative when he declared: “We’ve got to help Nigeria to do this. The UN is going to make proposals on how to protect school areas …The disturbing news like this goes beyond Nigeria. If young school girls are kidnapped in Nigeria, and it is happening in Pakistan and Iraq, it raises huge question about the future, the first thing for now is the safety of the girls. Boko Haram means western education is a sin and the Islamic militant group is determined to use schools as battleground to prosecute its campaign. We’ve got to make schools more secure. Nigeria needs international support to correct this and we’ve got to deal with lack of facilities and safety too.”

    We are aware that the violent killings through bombings and abductions going on, not only in the northeast, but also in the entire north have defied domestic control. We cannot but agree with this proposition because, to deny the need for foreign assistance at this point will be tantamount to denying the obvious, and the consequence might be too severe – an absolute annihilation of the entire region with very dire consequences on the general wellbeing of the nation at large.

    The gory catalogues of bombings and abductions have terrible effect on the already traumatised psyche of people of this troubled nation. In Yobe State alone, over 137 students were reportedly killed in four separate attacks on its schools between June 2013 and February, 2014. The Boko Haram sect has serially invaded and wantonly killed students of Government Secondary School, Damaturu, and Government Secondary School, Mamudo, Potiskum local government of Yobe State, where 29 students were slaughtered in a midnight attack. The untiring terrorist group also stormed College of Agriculture in Gujba local government area, also in the state, where not less than 40 students were killed in another midnight raid.

    We recollect that at a point last year, schools in Yobe State were shut down because of serial attacks on schools and students. Such wanton assaults on public schools and students’ lives are equally rampant in Borno State, with the latest being the abduction of yet-to-be rescued 234 students of Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok.

    It is alarming that Boko Haram has been callously responsible, in the past five years, for the killings of a conservative 5,000 people in northern Nigeria. More worrisome is the harsh reality that majority of the victims were pupils and other innocent civilians caught in the web of this group’s senseless actions against the state. Consequent upon these heinous acts, most parents have withdrawn their wards from schools in a region where literacy level is far below, not only international standards, but also the appreciable literacy level in other regions of the country. If only to create safe havens for learning by students in the entire north, we agree with Brown that henceforth, schools should become protected places, under the auspices of the United Nations, like hospitals and the Red Cross. The Nigerian government has failed in its duty of protecting educational institutions in that region.

    This UN initiative is very good but it is technically a signal to the world that Nigeria is at war with herself and needs foreign intervention to put her house in order. It is sad that outsiders are now more concerned about protection of lives in Nigeria’s territory than the country’s government that has proved, through tepid approach, that the enormity of the challenges is beyond its ability.

    Why then is the Federal Government against the idea of a state police which could have considerably helped in this regard?  Except this foreign aid comes in earnest, which is an equivalent of outsourcing the state, the country might be on her way to destruction since safety of lives and property can no longer be officially guaranteed.

  • Good news

    Good news

    • That 48 Awaiting Trial inmates pass GCE excellently is something to cheer  

    It is very rare for any good or cheering news to emanate from Nigerian prisons. Tales normally associated with the country’s beleaguered prison system are those of sadness, sorrow, pain and despair.  Ironically, the International Centre for Prison Studies cites Nigeria as having one of the 10 smallest incarceration rates in the world, with an average of 32 out of every 100,000 Nigerians in prison. This translates to a prison population of approximately 60,000 out of a total population of about 160 million Nigerians. Yet, despite this relatively small number of prisoners in a populous country like ours, and the substantial revenues accruing to the Nigerian state, especially from oil, the prisons are largely as decrepit and dysfunctional as virtually all other spheres of our national life.

    Not only are Nigerian prisons overcrowded, they are chronically unhygienic and thus breeding ground for all kinds of diseases. A key feature of civilised societies is a prison system that treats inmates with civility and dignity. The aim of such prison systems is to reform the criminal as much as possible, with the hope of re-integrating such deviants as useful members of society. On the contrary, the hallmark of the Nigerian prison system is to further dehumanise the prisoner and make the criminal even worse than he or she was before imprisonment. Not only do inmates perpetrate the most atrocious crimes against each other, prison officials routinely exploit and brutalise those supposedly under their care and watch.

    It is against this background that we consider quite refreshing and encouraging the recent report that 48 inmates awaiting trial at Ikoyi Prisons in Lagos performed excellently at the last November/December 2013 General Certificate of Examination (GCE). Each of these inmates, of the 102 that wrote the examination, obtained the required credits to get admitted into higher institutions. While receiving a presentation of gifts to the inmates by members of the Ikeja Branch of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) during the Y2014 Law Week, the Deputy Controller of Prisons, Mr Emmanuel Bamidele, said the inmates “when they finally regain their freedom, can seek admission into any university of their choice since they are awaiting trial”.

    He further disclosed that the prison has a Rehabilitation, Restoration and Reintegration programme designed to enable the inmates get educated so they can lead useful lives after leaving prison. This is a most commendable initiative that must have been responsible for the opportunity given the inmates to study for and write the examinations. It is very important that people who find themselves on the wrong side of the law are not made to believe that they are in a hopeless and irredeemable condition. Even then, it is depressing that, as Mr Ekundayo revealed, out of 1,761 inmates in Ikoyi Prison, 186 are convicted while 1,575 have been awaiting trial for between five and 13 years.

    This points, once again, to the urgent need to undertake radical prison reforms that will involve speedy dispensation of justice to substantially reduce the population of inmates awaiting trial as well as ensuring that convicted prisoners live in dignity and decency. The condition of our prisons is one indicator of the quality of our values as a people.

    We commend the example of the Ikoyi prisons and urge that efforts continue to be made to sanitise and upgrade the country’s prisons. This is to provide inmates the opportunity and conducive environment for the acquisition of knowledge and skills to give them hope for the future. It is certainly unsatisfactory, for instance, that much of the near N47.5billion allocated to Nigerian prisons in the 2014 budget will reportedly go for recurrent expenditure rather than new programmes and facilities.

  • Gone, like a comet

    Gone, like a comet

    •Amaka Igwe’s sun set at virtual noon. But her flash of life only underscored her brilliance

    Amaka Igwe, 51, exited like a comet. But her short and eventful life again underscores the saying: not how long but how well we live. It is doubtful if another can replace this sparkling star, in the constellation of Nollywood, Nigeria’s local film industry.

    Mrs Igwe, writer, producer, director, entrepreneur, wife, mother and daughter (to her aged mother), died on April 28, after an asthmatic attack. A thoroughbred professional, she died on virtual duty. The attack that ended her life reportedly came in Enugu where, with her husband, Charles, she was on a pre-production tour, on account of a new Igbo sit-com project she was to launch soon.

    Amaka Igwe was different from the pack. Her enterprise was beyond doubt. Even as a secondary school girl at Idia College, Benin, she organised variety shows which attracted the fee-paying public. That was aside from gifting her school — by teaching the school troupe — the famous Atilogwu dance; which reportedly became the school’s official dance.

    That entrepreneurial spirit would blossom in her later life with a chain of enterprises, all anchored on entertainment and showbiz: Amaka Igwe Studios, BoBTV Expo, Top Radio 90.9FM and the latest, Q Entertainment Networks. This entrepreneurial streak was all the more remarkable, given that her first degree was in Education/Religion at the Obafemi Awolowo University (then University of Ife), Ile-Ife, and another master’s degree from the University of Ibadan.

    Aside from her non-business academic training, the fact that she left a teaching job at the Anambra State University of Technology and another in Oil and Gas, to cut a niche in motion pictures and allied entertainment made her a poster girl for converting her passion to entrepreneurial and commercial success.

    But perhaps the most remarkable thing about this woman was the integrity of her enterprise.  Entering Nollywood when it was a fad to just “churn out something”, hoping the sheer novelty of the new local motion picture industry and the pioneering fever of the market would just lap it up, she set her eyes firmly on quality and excellence.

    Right from Checkmate, a television soap and the hilarious Fuji House of Commotion, her signature was quality, which crowned sheer genius. No wonder then that both were award winners — and they linger still in the viewers’ minds, even long after they were aired.

    Even during the era of home videos, when film funders but art philistines pushed movie directors/producers to push out sub-standard films, Mrs Igwe stuck to her mission of excellence, producing two critically acclaimed works in Rattle Snake and Violated.

    Though some critics would insist that she somewhat later fell for the lure of “pushing something out, hoping the works would find their levels in the market”, the abiding image of the Amaka Igwe artistic essence is a visionary mind, which quality projected the present big cinema era, when competition was still marooned in the highly limited home video sub-market.

    In a male-dominated society, Amaka Igwe was a role model for the smart, brilliant and competitive female — and she did that without sacrificing her matrimonial and family life. When she died on April 28, she had been married for 21 years, had three children and was known more for the merit of her work, than salacious scandals from her home.

    Mrs Igwe was a great and remarkable woman, a twinkling star of her generation. We condole with her family: her husband, Charles Igwe and their three children. Our prayers also go to her grieving mother, with pain almost beyond relief, of losing such a brilliant daughter in her prime. But we call on the Amaka family, nuclear and extended, to take heart that her short life was replete with achievements and professional nobility.

  • Weaning the world off its sweet tooth

    • Information will help consumers cut back on calories

    Obesity is the world’s biggest threat to health and sugar is the source of many of the calories that cause weight gain. Excessive weight is a contributory factor to cancer and chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.

    For many years governments shrugged their shoulders at sugar consumption, which accelerated after sugars were introduced into processed foods – ironically to deal with a health scare in the 1980s concerning the use of saturated fats.

    But now pressures on scarce healthcare budgets and resources are making them look again. This year Mexico, which along with the US boasts the world’s fattest population, became one of a handful of governments – and the biggest emerging market – to slap a tax on full-calorie soft drinks. These are much loved by its corpulent population. Mexico is the world’s second-largest consumer of carbonated drinks per capita. Of course the problem is not confined to emerging markets. Take Britain for instance. Obesity costs the National Health Service more than £4bn a year.

    The solution, always easy to say, is to eat less and exercise more. But giving up sugar is hard given our addiction to treats, plus the additional renunciation required. The World Health Organisation recently halved its recommended daily allowance, saying we should have no more than six teaspoons a day – less than one fizzy drink.

    Much of the sugar we eat sits unannounced in various forms within processed foods – upon which we are increasingly reliant – most often in the form of high fructose corn syrup, a cheaper sugar alternative.

    Governments have started to make tentative attempts to regulate sugar consumption. True, much of this revolves around public education through initiatives such as labelling. The aim is to allow consumers to make more informed choices. Some countries are moving beyond public information. Norway and Mexico already tax fizzy drinks. Some US states including California and Illinois are proposing similar measures. A debate is beginning in the UK where the chief medical officer said in March that a sugar tax may be necessary.

    There is logic to taxing the harm caused by sugar consumption. It would allow governments to recover the costs the overweight impose on society as a whole – especially in countries with a public healthcare system. Raising the cost is generally an effective way of limiting use.

    But before lumping sugar in with other health threats such as tobacco and alcohol, there are other things that governments might want to try.

    One is to improve public awareness of the dangers of different types of sugar. For instance, the sugars in fruit are fine when eaten but when bought as a juice they are no better than a soda.

    Food needs to be properly labelled. Progress is being made, such as overdue reforms to US food labelling, championed by Michelle Obama, planned to show added sugars. The UK’s Department of Health has also reformed labels to help shoppers monitor their intake of harmful food using a simple traffic light system. There is a case, however, for making this sort of information mandatory rather than voluntary. And it goes without saying that governments should not subsidise sugar production – as the US and EU still do.

    If this all fails to curb consumption, a tax should be considered. The outcome need not be regressive. It could be used to raise revenues to promote healthy activities, such as physical education in schools, and cheap vegetables for those on low incomes.

    Focusing on sugar’s harm is important but its role in our ever- widening waistlines is only part of the story. We must not lose sight of the real aim, which is to lead healthier lives.

    – Financial Times

  • New wine, old wineskins

    New wine, old wineskins

    • The old PHCN workers should not force themselves on the new power companies

    Old habits, they say, die hard. That is perhaps the best way to describe the latest but needless tussle between members of staff of the defunct Power Holdings Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and the new owners of the entities. This time around, it is the workers making the stunt, with their resistance to the move by the new owners to shed excess weight. These workers, if we may recall, had collected their severance packages under the mutually agreed terms of settlement; the terms also set six months as cut-off date for the new investors to review the status of staff to determine their requirement. The workers, as it appears, would rather have it their way by holding on to the jobs even if the new business owners do not need their services.

    We do not see the issues as anything but cut and dried. Were the issues about the government reneging on their obligations to these workers, their case would certainly have merit, not only deserving of sympathy but our understanding. Our understanding is that the parties – the Federal Government represented by the Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE) and the powerful electricity workers union have gone beyond this stage. Overall, a whopping N380 billion is on record to have been paid to the workers after negotiations that were as painstaking as tortuous for the parties. We also understand that the success of the process was what made the handover of the companies possible.

    As it is, the bone of contention appears to be the question of the obligations of the new owners to these workers after the expiration of the six-month contract. Surely, the workers could not now feign ignorance about the implications of the deregulation of the power sector, both in terms of the changed landscape for service delivery and also in terms of the number of redundancies that would inevitably follow. This was after all the basis of their insistence on collecting every dime due to them before the new investors could take over. Any suggestion therefore to the contrary at this stage would smack of bad faith – or dishonesty.

    None of the choices, we daresay, includes the narrow self-seeking path being championed by the workers. After eating their cake, the workers cannot be seen to be seeking to have it back. We cannot understand, for instance, why the same workers that delivered ‘crazy bills’ to Nigerians for decades would be wondering why same has not disappeared barely six months after the new investors took over. Just as we wonder why the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) that had all the while known that PHCN had casual workers for over 10 years would now be clamouring for retirement packages for them.

    All said, we disagree that the new investors have any fresh obligations to retain any staff considered surplus to their requirements. That, obviously would go against the grain of the privatisation exercise. More than that, it is the surest path to consolidating the ancien regime of poor work ethics, poor service delivery, and corruption. Forcing the old, surplus hands on the new operators would certainly be akin to putting new wine in old wineskins. The idea of using their numbers to intimidate the rest of Nigerians must equally be seen as deplorable and archaic. If they have any issues, they should be sorted out with the government. Anything to the contrary would be seen as an attempt to entrench themselves in the system.

    Clearly, the dwindling fortunes experienced in the sector in recent time have made the choices facing the nation rather limited. Top among the choices is the need to get the new investors to ramp up services and hence fulfill the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians who have come to see the privatisation exercise as the long-awaited answer to the sector’s woes. They need to invest in new equipment and human capital; we expect to see injection of fresh blood into the system to replace the old, aging workforce, to move gingerly in the direction of enthroning the electricity consumer as king.

  • Historic resignation

    Historic resignation

    • Nigerian leaders must learn from South Korea’s prime minister

    Prime Minister Chung Hong-won of South Korea made the point that his country is a place where democracy works and good governance is serious business, with his resignation on April 27, over the unfortunate April 16 ferry disaster in that country. More than 300 people, most of them students and teachers from one high school on a field trip, have died or are missing and presumed dead after the ferry sank on a routine trip south from the port of Incheon to Jeju. The government was heavily criticised over its handling of the situation and frequent changes in the information it provided.

    The criticisms were too strident to be ignored; Prime Minister Hong-won got the message. So, barely 11 days after, he turned in his resignation and this has been accepted by President Park Geun-hye who said however that the prime minister would remain in office until the rescue operation was completed. The resignation is intriguing for several reasons. Hong-won is not the minister of transportation; so he does not have a direct bearing with the incident. His job as prime minister is to coordinate other ministries within government.

    Again, almost every word he uttered after the incident is pregnant with meaning. As a matter of fact, that he even accepted that the government failed in its duty at the very point it was needed is something. Here, government officials would compound the folly by defending the indefensible. Then, his acceptance of responsibility is rare in our kind of environment. “During the search process, the government took inadequate measures and disappointed the public,” Chung said. “I should take responsibility for everything as the prime minister, but the government can assume no more. So I will resign as prime minister.”

    And, rather than trade blames, as many Nigerian public functionaries would do, he said: “This is not the time for blaming each other but for finishing the rescue operation and dealing with the accident” adding “In order to get over these difficult times, I ask the citizens for help.” The average Nigerian must be wondering if these words on marble could be coming from a public official in time of national distress because it is alien to our environment. The consonance between the prime minister’s words and deeds is commendable.

    The fact is that, at certain trajectories in every country’s history, when there seems to be confusion over which route to take, providence seems to have devised a way of providing clues to whatever seems confusing. When some months back, the scandal involving the former Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, was making waves, President Goodluck Jonathan appeared lost over how to deal with the situation, in spite of the glaring nature of the issues thrown up by the scandal. Providence promptly came to the rescue with a Ghanaian minister fired for merely contemplating hitting her first $1m as a public official. In spite of the example from Ghana, it took months for our president to make up his mind (or have his mind made up for him) to get the minister out of his cabinet.

    Then, on March 15, 18 job seekers died and many were injured during a nationwide recruitment test conducted by the Nigeria Immigration Service. More than two months after the shoddy recruitment exercise, the country has moved on after the initial outbursts, with the interior minister who oversees the sector, Abba Moro, still sitting pretty in office. We can go on and on listing many other instances. How many of our public officials would, like Chung, not want to be “any burden to the administration”? All the 15 crew members who survived the accident are  in custody and face charges ranging from criminal negligence to abandoning passengers.

    Certainly, President Jonathan and his aides who have been in the eye of the storm in recent times, and public functionaries who might find themselves in similar circumstances, must take a cue from South Korea, specifically from Prime Minister Hong-won.

  • The Donald Sterling fiasco

    The Donald Sterling fiasco

    • If the Clippers owner indeed made the racist statements attributed to him, there’s no place for him in the NBA.

    There are a lot of questions remaining about the strange, vile, racist comments that have been attributed to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling. The audiotapes need to be authenticated. The context of the remarks, which represent 16 minutes out of what was apparently an hourlong conversation, should be explained.

    But if it turns out that the tapes have not been doctored or misrepresented, and if Sterling did indeed castigate a female friend for associating with black people, then it is clear what needs to happen: Sterling must sell the team. If he doesn’t do so on his own, the NBA should apply whatever pressure it can, whether that means fining him or suspending him or using whatever other tools it has at its disposal to urge him out.

    The comments, if he made them, are a disgrace to Sterling himself, but more than that, they are an enormous embarrassment to the NBA and the city, and a heavy burden on the talented team now battling to win round one of the playoffs in its best season ever. While we generally support the right of individuals to say and think even the most offensive things, the team is not just another of Sterling’s private businesses; it is also a civic institution that plays under the banner of the city of Los Angeles. The city ought not be associated with an owner who says that he doesn’t want his mistress (if that’s indeed what she is) bringing black people to his team’s games — a remark made even more offensive by the fact that more than three-quarters of the players on the team and in the league are black. On the recording, the speaker tells the woman that it “bothers” him that “you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people.”

    Sterling is an octogenarian billionaire who has often been accused of bizarre and unseemly behavior; this is the latest an extensive string of racial controversies. In 1986, he was one of the first NBA team owners to hire a black general manager, Elgin Baylor — who, two decades later, sued for wrongful termination based on age and racial discrimination, although the racial claim was eventually dropped. Sterling, who owns apartment buildings throughout Los Angeles with thousands of rental units in them, was sued privately in 2003 for discriminating against blacks and Latinos in renting, and then sued again in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice on similar charges. He settled both suits, paying millions in each case.

    If the allegations are true, this can’t be written off as just a crotchety old man caught on tape saying something disagreeable. This is the wealthy and powerful owner of a basketball team that plays in a televised spotlight before millions of fans.

    If the tapes are legitimate and the voice is Sterling’s, that’s not a voice the city of Los Angeles or the NBA need to hear any more coming from the Clippers owner’s courtside seat.

    – Los Angeles Times

  • Olomo’s disappearance

    Olomo’s disappearance

    • It is a shame that such a high-profile intellectual has not been found

    The puzzling disappearance of James Bolarinwa Olomo, an egg-head and professor of Nuclear Physics at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, since last year has reinforced the escalating security challenges bedevilling the country. He reportedly left home on October 17, 2013, and flew to Calabar on an Arik Air flight from where he travelled by road to Eket, Akwa Ibom State. In Eket, he reportedly lodged at Hotel Farlem. His mission was to fulfill a purportedly scheduled obligation with Mobil Oil Unlimited, a multinational oil company where he was its Radiation Safety Adviser. He reportedly left his hotel room on October 20 without taking any of his belongings and could not be found since then.

    What could have informed the trip and even its sad end remains a matter of conjecture. But from reports, we can glean that Olomo embarked on the trip purportedly to kill boredom and to earn some income during last year’s long strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). But he was oblivious that that journey was going to turn out the way it had. We pray he survives since he reportedly suffered a similar fate on July 16, 2003, but was luckily released from his abductors’ captivity after spending 31 days there. This last one is, sadly, proving to be hopelessly too long since it is getting to over six months.

    We share in the apprehensions and anxiety of Olomo’s family, friends, dependants and professional colleagues that are deeply disturbed about his sudden and prolonged disappearance. In particular, his ancestral Olomo family of Risawe Anlerin Compound in Otan Ayegbaju area of Osun State has consistently addressed the media alongside the family lawyer to express their grave concerns over the disappearance of their illustrious son and breadwinner.

    The ASUU chapter of OAU led by Prof. Akinola Adegbola has not been left out. The union equally organised a media parley in Lagos to sensitise the public and call government’s attention to perceived lacklustre handling of the plight of Olomo. Despite the fact that the matter has been brought before the police and State Security Service’s topmost hierarchies, nothing concrete has been heard from government through these quarters or even through Nyesom Wike, Minister of Education.

    We deprecate the widespread incidents of mostly unresolved kidnappings, abductions, mysterious disappearances and killings in the country. These gory occurrences are no doubt a big slur on the already battered image of the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. We ask: Isn’t it a shame that someone of Olomo’s standing could just get missing without visible traces in a country where billions of naira are budgeted annually for security? If Olomo could not be found despite his status and the prominence accorded his case, we wonder the fate of most common Nigerians that are daily abducted by ritualists and other evil men/women in the land. This latter class with their agonising families would obviously be left to privately bemoan their plight in a country that is gradually descending into the abyss of devilish conducts.

    Nothing short of unravelling the mystery behind Olomo’s disappearance is acceptable from this administration and its security chiefs. The Inspector-General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar, and the top hierarchy of the intelligence service must do something fast to ensure the discovery of this distinguished don. That is the only way to justify their pay; and to, most importantly, convince those unsung Nigerian families that have suffered similar fates and others that live in perpetual fear of the unknown, that all hope is not lost, after all.

  • Whose content?

    Whose content?

    • The local content law gets its litmus test between Samsung and local firm LADOL

    NO nation’s economy can beat its chest if it brandishes high numbers but lags behind in the most vital statistics: the welfare of its citizens. And no welfare metric impresses like the job profile. And one of the government policies that tend to ensure that we have jobs here is the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan on April 22, 2010.

    The clamour for this law had rung up for more than a decade in the oil and gas industry because it is the main pie of Nigeria. Foreign firms had swarmed into the country and restricted job opportunities to their nationals. So we had the oil but they had the jobs, and it cost us not only the opportunity for our citizens to enjoy what they owned. It also foreclosed the possibility of allowing the interested locals from training and acquiring skills that would open access to lucrative jobs.

    The law is about to be tested in the courts with a Nigerian firm, Lagos Offshore Logistics, that has sued a South Korean firm and shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries. What is at stake is not whether it is good business for LADOL or bad business for Samsung. We want it to be good law for Nigerians. It is a good law for Nigerians if Nigerians enjoy the benefits.

    But according to news reports, Samsung secured a $3.1 billion contract to construct a floating production storage offshore vessel for the highly valued, multi-billion dollar Engina deepwater oil field development that generates an output of 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day. The South Korean company could not have secured it without partnering with a local company because of the 2010 local content law. That was when LADOL came into the picture after Samsung visited its facilities in Takwa Bay in Lagos in 2010.

    Both companies allegedly worked together to batten down agreements, including a memorandum of agreements. The agreement also compelled big investment from Samsung to the tune of $214 million, and LADOL also had to fulfill its own obligations in the contract.

    It seemed all was well with both sides in their relationships between 2010 and 2013 when they presented their proposal to the Nigerian authorities, including the minister of petroleum, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigerian Ports Authority. But once the deal was done, Samsung allegedly dumped its Nigerian partner and decided to relocate the site for its fabrication and integration in South Korea. This makes mincemeat of the Nigerian law and deprives Nigerians of tens of thousands of jobs.

    It must be noted that work had begun at the LADOL site prior to the approval by the Nigerian authorities. This was abruptly abandoned. We sniff a Machiavellian cynicism in the Samsung move and a disregard to local concern, which is supposed to be priority in any country that comes to Nigeria to do business.

    The concept of the Engina oil field is to make it the biggest in West Africa and to operate as the central hub of the sub region. This is a matter that does not only have a nationalist flavour. It is a matter of justice and fair play.

    The significance of this story also lies in the fact that it is a guinea pig tussle. It will show the way for how local firms and their foreign partners will do business. Eventually it will demonstrate whether the law gives more jobs to Nigerians, train them and bolster Nigeria’s claim to its own patrimony: oil. So, it is a tussle for Nigerian content.